Corsair Obsidian 550D: Starting to Specialize
by Dustin Sklavos on March 29, 2012 3:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- mid-tower
Assembling the Corsair Obsidian 550D
Despite my misgivings with some of Corsair's design decisions (which could easily be argued as tradeoffs), there's one thing that Corsair's engineers have down pat by now: ease of assembly. I've said before that assembling a Corsair enclosure is like a vacation for me, and the 550D was no exception.
Once again Corsair includes standoffs for the motherboard built right into the tray, although our refreshed testbed's new motherboard is Micro-ATX and thus required me to add a couple of standoffs. That said, installing the board was relatively painless, and I appreciated being able to plug the exhaust fan's 3-pin header directly into the motherboard.
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Speaking in all honesty, it's nigh impossible to find any real point in the assembly that's worth mentioning as a standout, at least in terms of difficulty. Corsair has, over time, gradually assuaged every remaining issue I've had with building systems in their cases. The drive sleds now allow me to install a 2.5" drive without removing any of the pins, and a 3.5" drive snaps in perfectly neatly. Popping out the 5.25" drive bay cover was a little bit of a struggle, but barely worth mentioning.
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Depending on your perspective, you could argue that cabling is a bit easier with the 550D. The recessed area surrounding the motherboard tray proper only further highlights how well Corsair's engineers guide assembly within their enclosures; it's essentially a subtle suggestion that says "cables go here." And while I'm concerned about the long term use of the side panel release mechanism, it must be said that getting that rear panel back on to the 550D doesn't require the same kind of elbow grease some other cases do: there's enough space to fit your cables back here without too much trouble.
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The biggest problem I had in assembly was getting the AUX 12V line to connect, but that's not necessarily something you can fault Corsair for so much as a problem that's par for the course when dealing with this kind of ATX enclosure design. The AUX 12V line on our new motherboard is lower than it was on the old one, and as a result the modular cable that was included with our new testbed power supply couldn't make the journey properly. Thankfully SilverStone uses the same connects for all of their modular power supplies (a convenience Corsair should take to heart) and once I found a longer cable, everything was fine.
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Thus, as I said, there's very little to report in the way of assembly. Corsair somehow continues to get the placement of the cable routing holes in the motherboard tray just right, and I can continue to recommend cases from the brand as a whole as being excellent choices for consumers just learning how to build their own machines.
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ExarKun333 - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
This is very true. Also, buying a quality fan can make a HUGE difference on not just airflow but noise as well. All 80mm fans are not created equal, same with 120mm, and so forth.Folterknecht - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
An other point is available space. Ok - if you just build that machine, use it and never touch it again fine, there small cases are ok maybe . But every time I tinker with my builds (midi/big towers) I m happy with my choices because my hands can reach the desired parts without problems. As a bonus you have better thermals with bigger cases, resulting in less noise if you choose the correct case and invest some thoughts into the right components and fans (their placement and direction of airflow).Rick83 - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
I'm not completely bought by the argument of bigger volume = bigger cooling.Indeed, the bigger volume creates more "dead space", while a smaller case can have more airflow along the surfaces that actually need to be cooled, by more selective "ducting". While this allows for a longer, more gradual ramp-up of temperatures with open-air GPUs, and top-blower CPU-coolers, in the end the final in-case temperature is a direct function of the air passing out of the case (surface are radiation is so small, that I am going to ignore it). Component temperature is a function of cfd along the cooler, cooler surface, and delta-theta of the cooler surface and the air flowing past. I argue that a small case optimizes the first parameter, while the other parameters should be equal, after a burn-in period.
An exception would be a power profile that emits frequent short bursts of thermal energy - in this case a big enclosure has a larger buffer, before the in-case air temperature rises.
The advantage of a bigger volume case is, that you have more area for suction/exhaust with the environment, but you also have less airflow "effectiveness", unless you actually use the space.
Also, few people regularly tinker with their builds. And a well laid out small case may still be superior to a not so well designed large case.
ExarKun333 - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
Bigger cases allow for bigger fans which = better cooling at lower noise levels.DMisner - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
I hate when people, especially reviewers, use a Micro-ATX motherboard in an ATX case. Just a pet peeveShieTar - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
I assume this decision was made in order to test both ATX and µATX cases with the same board, and as such it does make sense.On the other hand I do understand your point too. I did once buils a system into a (admitedly very cheap) case where the cable of the front-USB port was just a tad too short too reach the connectors at the very bottom of the full ATX board. That is a problem that you may not detect when testing with a µATX only.
Not that I expect this kind of problem from a modern Corsair case.
JCheng - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
Dustin, thanks for this review. New testing methodology notwithstanding, your case reviews are the best I have ever seen, not only in terms of the depth of your coverage and very good writing, but also case selection that mostly matches the cases that I personally find interesting/appealing.I am thinking about buying the 550D today or tomorrow (NewEgg's $20 rebate expires tomorrow) for a new build that will have an OC'd 2600K or 3930X, along with a single low-to-midrange passively cooled GPU (I am going to use it as a Linux development workstation). The CPU will frequently be flogged with doing parallel compiles using as many threads as the CPU can handle concurrently. I would like the system to remain extremely quiet under these loads.
My question is whether you think the 550D's "underwhelming" thermal performance would be fixed by the addition of 2 slow 120mm fans, either behind the drive cages (practically empty--I only need 1 SSD for storage) or as intakes on the top panel. Or whether, since I'm not expecting to have the GPU generating much heat, it is even worth worrying about. I would prefer the CPU not reach 80 degrees under any circumstances.
Any thoughts would be appreciated... thanks!
Nje - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
I'm also interested in this - although my plan was to add one or two intake fans on the side because of the conclusions drawn in 'The Big Air Cooling Investigation' at BitTech where they tested fan placements. They did use the R3, but I'm guessing the results would be pretty similar on the 550D. It seems that the most beneficial extra fans are the ones placed to blow air directly onto the motherboard.JCheng - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
I didn't know about that BitTech article, thanks--really helpful information. I'd only worry whether there's enough clearance to put in a side fan if I go with a big tower cooler like Noctua NH-D14.Nje - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
That's a good question, especially since I'm planning to get the Noctua NH-D14.. I'm still waiting for Ivy Bridge and some custom GTX680 cards to get into the stores though. Presumably at least one of the side fans would still have enough clearance?